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阐述可下载内容和虚拟商品之间的区别

发布时间:2012-06-11 11:36:05 Tags:,,,

作者:Nicholas Lovell

我认为可下载内容(简称DLC)和虚拟商品是两种完全不同的事物,但是却有许多玩家不同意这种说法。而促使我撰写本文的契机便是一篇发布在Eurogamer网站上的文章——《Peter Molyneux’s new game Curiosity has a £50,000 DLC》。

文章中所提及的一款游戏理念很疯狂,所以我一开始也怀疑这一理念来自一个Twiiter恶搞帐号。这款游戏是关于玩家轻敲一个立方体而揭开里面的内容。但是只有完成最后一击的人才能看到里面的东西。游戏中设有一个默认的凿子,而铁凿子则比售价59便士的凿子强大10倍,还有一个售价5万英镑且强大10万倍的钻石凿子。

而在上述例子中,文章作者将钻石凿子称为可下载内容(DLC)—–我并不同意这一说法。

FrontierVille-picnic-items(from weboolu-smite.blogspot.com)

FrontierVille-picnic-items(from weboolu-smite.blogspot.com)

什么是DLC?

DLC源于传统的盒装零售。早前的游戏(几乎全是电脑游戏)主要是以实体盒装的形式进行发行,也就是我们口中的“扩展包”。这就要求玩家必须拥有最早的游戏,并且这也比购买一款新游戏便宜得多。就像在我的橱柜中还能找到《动物园大亨》的扩展包《海洋世界》(游戏邦注:即在之前游戏的基础上添加了新的海洋生物和水上活动)以及添加了额外任务和角色的《博德之门》扩展包。

然后我们就进入了互联网开始盛行以及发行商开始制作掌机游戏的时代。这时候开发者便能够通过添加“可下载内容”(游戏邦注:如新关卡,新地图,新故事情节或新角色等)而延伸每一款游戏的寿命。

什么是虚拟商品?

虚拟商品(至少是在大众心中)总是与Facebook游戏——如Zynga旗下的游戏,手机游戏和网页游戏联系在一起。就像在Capcom的《Smurf Village》中玩家可以使用Smurfberries提高速度,《FarmVille》中的虚拟农舍和Bigpoint的《黑暗轨迹》中的“10th Drone”也属于虚拟商品。

它们同样也存在于掌机游戏中,不管是一款传统游戏中的新道具或装备,还是你的Xbox游戏角色或PlayStation Home上的虚拟道具。

为何要区分这两个定义?

这两者都属于可下载的内容,那我又为何纠结于它们的不同呢?

因为它们确实不同。

对于任何参与游戏制作的人来说,明确这两者的区别非常重要。我将从市场营销,动机和开发成本这几点去阐述它们之间的区别。

DLC和虚拟商品的市场营销和动机

可下载内容,至少从历史上来看这便是关于所有的“内容”。这是关于提供给用户更多的环境,更多的故事情节,更多的动画,更多的情节等等。而关于这一内容的市场营销有可能是“你喜欢这款游戏,为什么你不购买更多游戏内容?”而玩家将会根据游戏所带给他们的乐趣去判断要不要购买DLC。

而虚拟商品就不同了。就像我会在《FarmVille》中购买一座农舍是因为如果没有这座农舍我的农场就会不完善。而其他玩家也可能会为了超越好友,为了炫耀,为了自我表现,为了突出自己的地位等而购买虚拟商品。而这些购买理由更多与情感状态以及玩家购买虚拟商品后的感觉有关,而不是游戏玩法所承载的价值。

(当然也存在其它动机。像《火箭飞人》中的“Counterfeit Coin”需要花费玩家69个硬币,但是却能够加倍提升他们收集货币的速度,或让他们的工作量减半。对于我来说这是一种值得付出的道具。这一动机对于每一款游戏中的玩家的作用也不同,而我也只能通过这篇短文进行简短的概括)。

尽管所有市场营销都是致力于调动我们的情感,但是在这一点上虚拟商品更是需要采取与DLC完全不同的方式。促使玩家购买这两样商品的结构也完全不同,因此它们的市场营销也必须具有针对性。DLC和虚拟商品的开发成本

创造一个虚拟商品需要花费多少成本?2007年的某个星期,据称《跑跑卡丁车》通过出售2美元的“圣诞帽”而赚得了200万美元的利益。因为对于美工来说创造出圣诞帽只需要花费一个下午的时间便可,所以对于该公司来说这便存在着一个巨大的利润空间。

与之形成对比的是《使命召唤:黑色行动》中的“Rezurrection”。这一DLC包含了新的武器和装备,新能力,新的音乐以及四个具有版本特性的关卡。而要想创造出这些新内容可不是一名美工人员花费一下午便能完工那么简单。

DLC和虚拟商品扮演不同角色

我之所以如此强调这两者之间的差别是因为,我们是在创造DLC还是在虚拟商品将决定许多变化。

如果我们创造的是DLC,我们的目标便是迎合玩家的需要而制作一个单一的内容。这与我们过去销售商品的模式类似,即我们创造一件成本较高(风险较大)的商品,以此尝试着去吸引更多用户。成功与否取决于购买人数——并且所有人买的都是相同的东西。因为DLC的价格是固定的,所以我们只能通过售出商品的数量来定义成功。

如果我们创造的是虚拟商品,我们的目标便是根据不同原因创造出更多不同的商品去吸引不同玩家(游戏邦注:如果你在游戏中出售虚拟货币,你便可以让玩家使用这些货币去购买不同的游戏商品)。我们始终压低每个道具的制作成本,并因此降低了风险。这时候的成功不再取决于每个单一道具的销量,而是关于道具的传播。我们可以通过每用户平均收益去定义成功,而不是卖出的数量或平均销售价格。

对于用户来说,不论你是否花10英镑购买一座农舍或者购买更大的扩展包,你都是在为已经下载的游戏花钱。而对于游戏开发者来说,他们对DLC和虚拟商品差异的理解则将决定他们所面临的最终结果(包括风险,成功,使用何种参数去追踪数据,或者需要使用何种市场营销技能去销售游戏内容),如果不能明确这些差别,你便犯了一个代价巨大的错误。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

What’s the difference between DLC and a virtual good?

Nicholas Lovell

I think there is all the difference in the world between downloadable content and virtual goods, but it appears that many gamers don’t agree. The trigger for this post was an article on Eurogamer headlined “Peter Molyneux’s new game Curiosity has a £50,000 DLC“

The game in question is sufficiently bonkers that at first I thought it was an idea from spoof twitter account @petermolydeux. The game involves tapping on cube to reveal what’s inside. The twist: only the person who performs the last tap gets to see the reveal. The game comes with a default chisel, an iron chisel that is 10x more powerful for 59p and a diamond chisel what is 100,000 more powerful for £50,000.

It is the diamond chisel that Eurogamer called a DLC, and I don’t agree.

What is DLC?

The genesis of DLC lay in traditional boxed retail. Games (almost exclusively PC games) would release physical boxes that were called “expansion packs”. These required the player to own the

original game and typically cost les than a brand new title. Titles that I still have sitting in my cupboard include the Marine Mania expansion for Zoo Tycoon that added new sea creatures and water-themed activities and the additional quests and characters that were added to the Baldur’s Gate series with its expansions.

Fast forward to the age of the Internet and publishers making games for consoles were able to get in the act. They were able to extend the lifecycle of each game by adding “downloadable content”, such as new levels, new maps, new story lines or new characters to the game.

What are virtual goods?

Virtual goods, in the popular mind at least, are indelibly associated with Facebook games such as those made by Zynga, with mobile games and with browser games. They include things such as the Smurfberries used to hasten your way through Capcom’s Smurf Village, a virtual farmhouse in Farmville or the 10th Drone in Bigpoint’s Dark Orbit.

They can also exist in console games, whether that be new items or equipment in a traditional game, or virtual items for your Xbox avatar or in PlayStation Home.

Why do you care about the difference?

Both of these items are downloadable. Both could come under the definition of content. Why do I care so much that they are different.

Because they are.

For anyone involved in the business of making games (less in the pleasure of playing them), the distinctions really matter. I’d like to separate the distinctions into marketing/motivation and development cost.

The marketing and motivation of DLC and virtual goods

Downloadable content, historically at least, was all about “content”. It was about providing the user with more environments, more story lines, more animations, more plot and so on. The marketing hook tended to be “you like this game, why don’t you buy more of it”, and players might evaluate DLC in terms of the number of hours of fun it might bring them.

Virtual goods are totally different. I bought a farmhouse in Farmville because my farm didn’t look right without one. Other players might spend money to get ahead of their friends, to show off, for self-expression, for status, for any number of reasons. The reasons have much more to do with an emotional state, much more to do with how the purchase of ownership of the virtual good will make us feel, than in an evaluation of how much gameplay it carries.

(Of course, there are other motivations. The Counterfeit Coin machine in Jetpack Joyride costs 69p and doubles the rate at which I collect coins, or halves the grind. It still feels like a great purchase to me. The motivations are as varied as the audience of each game, and this short post inevitably generalises, but expect more on the topic of emotions and social influence from GAMESbrief this year).

In short, while all marketing aims to appeal to our emotions, virtual goods have to do so in a totally different way to DLC. The entire structure of what motivates people to buy these two different products is different, and hence the marketing needs to adapt.

The development cost of DLC and virtual items

How much does it cost to make a virtual good? In one week in 2007, Kart Rider is rumoured to have made $2 million selling Santa hats at $2 a pop. Given that a Santa hat can probably be knocked up in an afternoon by an artist, that’s a pretty impressive margin. (Of course, the company had to build and run a free, multiplayer, fun, kart-racing game to support the sales of Santa hats, but for the purposes of this discussion, that is not the point).

Contrast that to the Rezurrection expansion to Call of Duty Black Ops. That DLC contains new weapons and equipment, new perks, new soundtracks and four levels “re-mastered” for the game. It cost a lot more than just an artist working on a Santa hat for the afternoon.

DLC and virtual goods fulfil a different role

The reason I care about the difference so much is because so much changes depending on whether you are making DLC or a virtual item.

If you are making DLC, your objective is to make a single piece of content that lots of people will want. It is familiar territory to businesses who are used to selling products. You create a product that is expensive to make (increasing risk). You try to appeal to the largest number of people. Success is measured by the number of people who buy it, and everyone buys the same thing.

Because the price of the DLC is basically fixed, you define success by the number of copies you sell.

If you are making virtual goods, your objective is to make lots of items that will appeal to different people for different reasons. (Even if you are selling virtual currency, that currency will be used to buy lots of different in-game things). You keep the cost of creating each individual item low to reduce risk. Success is not measured by the sales of an individual item, but by the sales of the spread of items. You define success by Average Revenue Per User, not by number sold or average selling price.

I do see the argument that for a consumer, whether you spend £10 on a farmhouse or on a bigger expansion pack, you’ve still spent £10 for something that you’ve downloaded. For the game makers, the consequences – the risk you’ve taken, the nature of success, the metrics you use to track it, the marketing techniques you need to sell it – are so vastly different that if you don’t understand the difference, you are danger of making some very expensive errors.(source:gamesbrief)


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